Harmonised Unemployment Rates (HURs), OECD - Updated: July 2014

OECD unemployment rate stable at 7.4% in May 2014

09/07/2014 - The OECD unemployment rate was stable at 7.4% in May 2014. Across the OECD area, 44.7 million persons were unemployed, 5.1 million less than the peak recorded in April 2010 but still 10.1 million more than in July 2008.

The unemployment rate was also stable in the Euro area, at 11.6%, 0.4 percentage point lower than one year ago. It fell by 0.3 percentage point in Portugal (to 14.3%), by 0.2 percentage point in the Netherlands (to 7.0%), and by 0.1 percentage point in Austria (to 4.7%). It increased by 0.1 percentage point in Luxembourg (to 6.3%), Ireland (to 12.0%) and Italy (to 12.6%).

The May unemployment rate also fell in Japan (by 0.1 percentage point to 3.5%) while it rose by 0.1 percentage point in Canada (to 7.0%) and Mexico (to 5.1%). Unemployment was stable in May in the United States (at 6.3%), although more recent data show that it decreased by 0.2 percentage point in June, to 6.1%.

The OECD May unemployment rate for women (at 7.5%) was 0.2 percentage point higher than for men (at 7.3%). The unemployment rate for youth rose by 0.2 percentage point to 15.0%, 2.3 percentage points below the peak recorded in October 2009 but 2.0 percentage points higher than in July 2008. Youth unemployment remains exceptionally high in several Euro area countries such as Greece (at 57.7% in March, the latest month available), Spain (at 54.0%), Italy (at 43.0%), Portugal (at 34.8%) and the Slovak Republic (at 32.4%).

Contacts For further information, journalists are invited to contact the OECD's Media Relations Division on (33) 1 45 24 97 00 or news.contact@oecd.org; others should contact the Statistics Directorate on stat.contact@oecd.org.